Singapore – Microsoft has launched new digital sustainability guidelines alongside the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) to accelerate education and awareness amongst businesses and developers, as they build sustainable applications by design. Through this, the tech giant aims to position Singapore as a premiere innovation hub in the Southeast Asian region.
The digital sustainability guidelines provide educational information and actionable insights for businesses and developers committed to reducing carbon emissions through their work and creating long-term sustainable impact at scale.
The guidelines also clarify the relationships between hardware and software sustainability principles and measurements. It provides straightforward guidance on integrating energy efficiency, carbon awareness and hardware efficiency into software engineering and development processes.
Moreover, it also provides tools and solutions to help businesses and developers track, report and reduce carbon emissions or greenhouse gases (GHG) created during the creation, running and maintenance of any application or solution, reducing the embodied carbon, GHG and carbon emissions in their lifespan.
Jeth Lee, chief legal officer at Microsoft Singapore, said, “Nurturing the foundations of a resilient, digitally inclusive future is a shared responsibility. These guidelines represent a collective drive to create a positive impact on the environment, by equipping developers with principles and tools to build applications that are inherently more sustainable.”
He added, “Providing developers with practical means of tracking and reporting emissions ensures that we are not simply embracing sustainability as an aspiration but actively working towards our net-zero targets.”
Meanwhile, Chee Wei Nga, director of emerging technology office for BizTech Group at IMDA, commented, “The launch of these guidelines will help advance Singapore’s efforts in becoming a leading digital sustainability hub in this region. Greening the ICT sector is important to IMDA and we will continue to work closely with partners such as Microsoft, Green Software Foundation to enable developers and businesses the ability to understand energy efficiency, carbon awareness and green software development. We will continue to drive a positive change to our environment, in Singapore and beyond our shores.”
